For me it wasn’t just core code contributions, his theme competition was a big early showcase for the power of WP theming and was something I learned from and returned to often in my early couple of years working with WP. I later used his Carrington Framework on a few sites and appreciated the thoughtfulness and power that it gave to big WP sites.

I met him briefly at WordCamp San Francisco in 2012, and was mostly just happy that he knew who I was! I remember acting super awkward, but he was really nice and approachable.

If you have any stories to tell about Alex, post them on your blog! I can’t think of a better way to remember him than to let a thousand stories bloom in the form he contributed so much to. His last request was to send remembrances so that his daughter could know who he was. So do that, too.